Keeping Clean
by Arguing Ineffability
Summary: When strange people begin to surface around Soap, life takes another turn for the worst. R for language, violence, and fish.
1. Of Mob Bosses and Onions

**KEEPING CLEAN **

**Rated R for cursing, violence and fish.**

* * *

It was a small shop somewhere in London, set off in the back alleys among a line of stores that had long ago moved out. It was built of crumbling bricks, and painted in a colour that may have once been stylishly referred to as 'charcoal' but was now, respectively, dirt and birdshit. At the top of the squat building there was an off-white sign with cheerful, peeling gold letters that proclaimed the store to be 'Marker's Funerary, supplying exquisite coffins since 1977.'

Somewhere outside, there was the sound of a transport truck rumbling along the broken street, and pulling up beside the building. Two men in blue jumpsuits leapt out of the beaten vehicle and walked to the carriage of the transport, opening it; they pulled out what appeared to be a recently-made, unlaquered coffin. The edges were unsanded, and the interior was no doubt unfurnished. The casket was handled without much care, and then dropped unceremoniously onto the concrete - there was an 'oof' from inside.

The lid to the coffin was thrown back with a loud creak, and a man was pulled from it looking a little worse for the wear. He had splinters and cuts all over his young face, and one of his eyes were half-closed from what could only be assumed as a good, solid punch. He opened his mouth to speak, but a fist met his teeth first, and he came to the logical decision that silence was best.

He was taken under each arm and frog-marched inside where he was unceremoniously tossed onto the floor, and slid several feet before he finally found himself nose-to-shoe with another man. He looked up slowly with the one eye currently available to him.

Now, if one were following accordingly to plot devices, the man should have been tall and wearing a dark suit and foreboding smile. The foreboding smile was there, but the man was actually pretty small, balding, and wearing a bright blue apron covered in wood shavings.

"Travis," The man in the apron said, spreading his hands in a good-natured way that made everybody in the room edgy. "Travis, look at you. You're a mess."

Travis looked blearily up from the floor, his lip swollen.

"You can thank your men for that, Charlie."

"No sense in holding grudges, they're just doing their job." Charlie said dismissively, going down onto his haunches. "So if you do yours, then you can get out of here twice as fast. No sense in formalities, we both know what you're here for: where's Denny?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Travis replied too soon. Charlie exchanged a meaningful look with one of the jumpsuit men, who came forward and landed a solid kick in the fallen man's ribcage, causing him to crumple up. Charlie stood again, and began to walk the length of the store, calloused fingers running over the lids of the numerous coffins on display.

"I'm quite proud of this place Mister Giantis," he said, ignoring the sounds of the man's agony. "I make all of these coffins myself you know. They take a lot of work, every one of them - you'd know, you just spent an hour in one of them. But still, i'd hate to think of your blood spoiling any of them, I like to keep the wood in its grain, and it's not good for business."

He turned suddenly on his heels, and his shoes squeaked loudly on the floor.

"So I'll ask you again, where's Denny gone to?" It wasn't a question this time. It was a demand laced with implications of pain.

"Denny who?"

Another steel toed boot hit into his ribcage, and this time there was a very absolute crack that told everyone a bone had just snapped in two. Travis lost his lunch at that point.

"'Denny who'?" Charlie repeated with a humorless smile on his scarred face. "Dennis-Fuckin'-Farthing. Denny-the-fuckin'-rat, that's who. You should know him; you rolled with him for a good few years. What was it you called yourselves? The brothers of knives, or something of the sort?"

"The Brotherhood of the Blade." One of the jumpsuit men said, his ogre-face fixed on the retching man. "Dey all broke off a while back, tight bunch though – they were damn good con men, I tells ya."

The other man in the jumpsuit nodded.

"Yeah, all of 'em 'ave a tattoo on 'em; a cleaver or summat. Appar'ntly their ring leader lost it and retired from business a while back." He kneeled down beside Travis, and grasped the edge of the man's collar, pulling it back. Just on the back of the man's neck, there was the fading image of a blood-stained cleaver buried inside a gold coin. "Aye, see there, Charlie?"

There was a long pause in which Charlie stared at the man, and his large moustache bristled. Outside, a slight breeze caused the outdoor bell to jingle merrily. The silence broke.

"I didn't ask for a fucking life story," Charlie shouted, losing his temper, "Shut the fuck up and kick him! I want answers!"

* * *

Denny was in shit.

Not literally, of course.

Alright, well, it may have been literal, as he was running through London's sewer system. It smelled quite badly, but he didn't really have time to stop and notice the air's particular pungency, as he was too busy running for his life.

He'd been running for his life for a while now, actually, and he wasn't all too sure where he was running to anymore, but all he knew was that he had two very large men with two very large guns chasing after him and he had no intention of stopping to find out why.

Ideas raced through his exhausted and sleep-deprived mind, and eventually, once the kaleidoscope of thoughts stopped, he settled on one firmly lodged destination. He would go to an old friend of his.

As he splashed by, the breeze that caught at his shirt collar moved back for a momentary glimpse of a tattoo; a butcher knife and a gold coin.

* * *

There was a flash of silver, a glint of light on steel as the cleaver came down and cut through layers of flesh again and again, effectively separating it into several tidy pieces. There was a satisfied grunt, the knife was cleaned, and there was a gentle scrape of metal as it was put back in its holding.

Soap stepped back from the butcher's block and yawned. He pulled off his sanitary gloves, carefully disposed of them, and turned to the pot boiling on the stove. He looked at the broth for a moment, crossed the kitchen and opened the fridge, removing a bag of vegetables. He conscientiously cleaned every spot on the table and cutting board before setting the bag down; he pulled out an onion, which turned out to be badly bruised – no surprises there, he'd gotten it from Tom.

"Bugger." Soap said to no one in particular, sifting through the vegetables that sat in varying states of depressing rot.

"Bugger what, Soap? That's Tom's job."

Soap looked up, and where no one had been standing previously, had now been filled in by Bacon, Ed and Tom.

"Now that was a low shot." Tom said, tugging at his jacket.

"You can take it, you've got enough padding." Ed said, motioning to the circumference of Tom's middle.

"Now what's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're fat, Tom," Bacon said bluntly, having a staring contest with one of the pig heads that sat in a macabre-jaunty fashion on a counter. "And getting fatter by the hour."

"I still fail to see how you can possibly accuse me of being over weight. Look, I'm a bloody rail."

"A very fat rail."

"Would you three shut up?" Soap said, wielding a rotten onion as though it were a weapon. "Look Tom, this onion stinks."

"So do you Soap, but we don't comment on it." Tom said, but decided not to continue on that track as Soap gave him a look that spoke of hot daggers. "Look, onions are supposed to smell. What onion doesn't smell?"

"Yes, Tom, onions smell, it's a wonderful analogy. However, onions are supposed to smell like onions, not like a sewage system."

"Alright precious, don't get your panties in a twist," Tom put his hands in the air. "It's only a fucking onion anyways."

"Yes, but I bought this fucking onion from you, Tom. This isn't the first time this has happened either,"

"Then stop buying from me, Jesus Christ, Soap, what's gotten into you lately?" Tom asked, pulling off his toque, "You've been pissy about everything."

"I have not."

"Yes, you have." Ed put in, "You're going to give yourself a bloody ulcer with all the worrying you've been doing."

"Granted, worry isn't foreign to you Soap, but you've been doing enough of it for all of us lately - you need to take a rest."

"I cannot just 'take a rest', Bacon, I have a job, and it is not in my power to go have a nap time whenever I feel. You three are unbelievable."

"Look, all I know is that you need to sit down and relax before you fucking kill yourself. God knows your nerves aren't made of titanium, Soap, so cool down before you burn out, alright?"

Soap opened his mouth to protest, but shut it again. There was a long, uncomfortable silence this time.

"We're going to the pub if you want to join us." Ed said with a touch of hopefulness. Soap shook his head.

"No, I've got work to do. See you some other time."

With that said and done, the three left the kitchen, leaving Soap with his thoughts, while somewhere down the street, three more figures streaked towards the kitchen.

* * *

****

**Author Note:** No, I don't own any of the 'Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' characters; those are Guy Ritchie's. The others are mine though. Don't sue me please, I have no money and I live in a box. Reviews and critiques are nice, thank you very much, I appreciate it; flames are not well-looked upon and will be printed out, shown to many, and laughed at. Goo goo g'joob.


	2. Manholes

**Still R.**

* * *

****

Cars drove by noisily that evening, rumbling heavily over the streets. Not many people really noticed how loud automobiles really were, but that's because very few ever got the perspective that Dennis Farthing - better known as Denny - was getting.

His perspective was from a manhole on a busy street, and he had watched three cars come at his head and nearly decapitate him in the last five minutes. No one had any respect for pedestrians, but he wasn't so sure he counted as one at this point.

Every few seconds, Denny would look down the grubby ladder he was balancing perilously on and nervously finger a revolver in his pocket. He knew those great thugs were still after him, but whether they'd gone the right way or not wasn't something he was planning to stick around to find out – if only a goddamn car would stop and let him out.

Experimentally, he lifted the cover of the man hole again, only to have it suddenly bashed off of his hand and plastered into the front of a honking station wagon. He ducked back down, deciding that it was suddenly safer down there.

* * *

Two men, one by the name of Brent Hensley, the other as Chester Cleave, ran through the muck of the sewers, the cuffs of their dark trousers turning very interesting shades from the very interesting chemicals in the sewage. They were the sort of men that went by their last names, wore sunglasses in the dark, and often referred to themselves in third person.

Both of them worked for the Government, but felt no need to specify for what particular branch and both of them carried professional looking guns fitted with fancy gadgets that were supposed to help improve the grip and targeting – this was because they both had very bad aim.

Hensley and Cleave stopped somewhere along the sewer tunnels where, predictably, it forked out into three different pipes. Their suspect had gone through one of these, though which one, they were unsure. Through their dark sunglasses, they looked at one another, privately squinting through the shadows.

There was a moment of silence as the two considered this dilemma, and at the same time, Cleave walked to the left tube, while Hensley headed for the right, and both collided somewhere in the middle.

There was splashing and quite a lot of cursing before the two stood up again, adjusted their serious-looking ties, and decidedly walked into the centre pipe.

* * *

Another car screamed a high-pitched noise at Denny as he made another valiant effort to escape a manhole. As the car passed by over head, he stuck his hand out and gave the driver the middle finger.

"Well fuck you too!" he shouted, and quickly pulled his arm back as an eighteen-wheeler blared at him. Denny ducked under, staring up meekly as the enormous transport trundled along. If this kept up much longer, he knew he was fucked – and not proper fucked either, no such luck.

As fate and irony would have it, the transport hit a red light as it moved itself over top of the open sewer just as Hensley and Cleave were only a few metres away from the ladder.

If there was one thing a person would learn about Denny, it was that he was resourceful, something he'd learned some time ago. He took advantage of the truck's high undercarriage, grasped the iron bars beneath the storage, and pulled himself up and out.

* * *

_Thunk__ Thunk. Thunk._

Again and again, the knife hit the chopping block as Soap progressed with a steady rhythm through the few vegetables he had managed to salvage. He was halfway through a cabbage before he stopped and let out a low, dull sigh.

It was a bit monotonous, he knew, but that's the way he'd wanted it. He wanted boredom, not excitement and adventure and exciting car chases and what not. He just wanted peace and quiet.

But he was also uncomfortably aware that Bacon had probably been right, he usually was. Being a chef didn't offer the complete solitude Soap desired – in fact, he'd been getting a lot of flak recently from certain customers he catered to. A majority of them were high class, and were becoming increasingly picky and specific about food preparations, and it offered stress that everyone knew Soap didn't need.

No one quite understood why Soap was so twitchy all of the time, but it wasn't pretty when it got out of hand. He'd had break-downs before, the worst of which he'd ended up sick for an entire week after drinking enough alcohol to kill a horse – the others had been surprised at the fact he hadn't died; up until then, they hadn't known how much alcohol he was able to retain and still stand.

He set down the knife he'd been using, and leaned back against the counter, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, eyes sealed shut. He didn't know what he was really doing anymore, or if he even wanted to do his job anymore, things had been getting a bit off-colour for him.

Then there was a creak, and a shuffling footstep – it was the sound of someone _trying_ to be quiet. Soap listened carefully, being sure not to move.

_Creak, shuffle, creak, shuffle._

Then there was an unnerving click, one that cause a chill to creep down Soap's spine – a revolver's cylinder spinning on its pin.

Soap moved so fast that his arm became a blur as a knife was hefted up in his hand and hurled with deadly accuracy in the direction of the perpetrator. Denny just barely managed to move as it struck point-first into the wall beside his head and wobbled a few times.

"Jesus Christ!" Denny shouted, managing to pull his eyes away from the knife and the hairs it had pinned to the wall.

From his spot at the counter, Soap squinted at the figure. It was wearing a former camelhair jacket and about three layers of dirt.

"Dennis?"

"No, it's Queen fuckin' Mary." Denny said. Soap continued to squint at him, but this squint showed signs of flipping the bird. "Look, I didn't mean to startle you,"

"Like hell you didn't, the way you came in, you sounded just like -"

"Alright, alright, sorry, don't say it. Jesus. Travis was right about you, Alex," Denny said, a grin evident somewhere under the mess as he approached the counter, tracking mud along behind him.

"Right about what?" Soap asked suspiciously.

"You really are a mess. I'd been told you'd gone a bit off after that lovely little incident, but I'd never have believed it." Denny said, the smile having faded a bit. The two considered one another for a long moment, and Denny was the first to look away. Soap crossed the room after a moment, locked the door, and pulled the knife out of the wall, inspecting how deep the cut was. "How've you been, Alex? I mean, a _chef_ of all things,"

"Why are you here, Dennis?" Soap asked flatly, not bothering to look up from the knife as he walked back to the counter.

"To my knowledge, we were still on speaking terms last time we saw one another."

"That was years ago. Things are different now." Soap spoke in a voice of nonchalance, though the curiosity was evident, and he repeated himself, "Why are you here?"

Denny opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He repeated this motion several times before he could get any words out.

"Because I need your help," Denny said finally.

"You know I don't bilk anymore."

"Yeah, I know, it has nothing to do with that. This isn't a job I'm talking about."

"Then what -?"

"It's about Travis. He's in trouble right now, and it's because of me." Denny said hurriedly, not wanting Soap to interrupt before he finished.

"What kind of trouble are we talking about here?"

"Serious," Denny said meekly, looking down at his hands, "Charlie Marker serious."

"Charlie Marker? Oh fuck, Denny, you don't mean Charlie the Coffin." Soap said, staring down the other man.

The silence told Soap everything he didn't want to know, and he slammed his knife down into the counter. "How the fuck did you manage that? Charlie the Coffin is a mob boss, Denny, a mob boss. He's known to bury men alive, but not before torturing them half to insanity. He's one of the most elusive underworld figures that ever existed, and it's not like you'd try to pull a con on him, so how the _fuck_ did you manage that, eh?"

When Denny continued to look down at his hands, horror dawned on Soap.

"I can't believe this. I can't believe you! You tried to pull a con on him. What made you think you would get away with it – no, don't answer that. I don't want to know. I'm just surprised you're still alive." Soap said, pacing back and forth, his hands fumbling together.

"Look, we screwed up, alright? We screwed up, and right now, as we speak, God knows what's happening to Travis."

"What? You don't mean that they've actually _caught _Travis, do you?" Soap asked, turning suddenly to look at Denny, chewing at one of his nails. He reached suddenly over the counter and grabbed Denny's collar, shaking him viciously. "Do you?!"

This question remained unanswered, however, when there was a knock at the door.

* * *

"Think he'll be alright?" Ed asked, sitting in the passenger seat of Tom's car as they drove away from the kitchen.

"I don't know." Tom said, "I mean, it is Soap, after all. You can never quite tell with him – but he's getting that vein popping out on his neck again, and every time that happens, you know he's due for quite a break down."

"'Quite a break down'? You've a talent for understatement all of a sudden, Tom. That vein is the size of Arabia. Any more, and his head is going to pop off." Bacon said in his usual blunt fashion.

There was a long pause between the three friends.

"Why Arabia?" Tom asked slowly, and Bacon peered at him through the back-view mirror.

"What do you mean 'why Arabia'? Why not?"

"Well, I know what you mean, but Arabia seemed like an odd comparison." Tom shrugged, then after a moment, "I left my hat at the kitchen."

"I'm sure Soap will take care of it." Ed said off-handedly.

"It's below freezing out, Ed," Tom said, "So I'd prefer to have my hat with me so I don't freeze my fucking ears off."

"So get a new hat."

"I like that hat, that was an expensive hat." Tom shot back, doing an illegal U-turn, causing the other two to grip their seats.

"There is something very wrong with you, Tom." Bacon said, and muttered under his breath, "'Why Arabia'?"

"Alright, look," Tom said, turning in his seat, "When you said - "

"Tom, eyes on the road!" Ed shouted as the car began to swerve, hit something, did a complete spin, and screeched to a stop half a street from the kitchen, smoking quietly as cars honked and roared on the street.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I have a single, solitary review. Please kill its lonely.

Thanks for the friendliness, **Rayezin**, you make a writer happy. No, there is no slashiness within the walls of this story, not to say I am against it, but I have some difficulty seeing any of the fellows in this story having any sort of relationship with one another outside of platonic.


	3. Tourists and Dirty Men

**Rating's not going to change. Still bad stuff in here. Many bad words, I warned you.**

* * *

The kitchen fell silent when a knock came at the door. It was the fierce, angry sort of knock that one only uses when one is absolutely and royally pissed off. Denny looked at Soap from somewhere beneath the dirt, and he looked back, and for a brief moment there was a glimmer of the brotherhood they had once shared.

"Get behind the counter." Soap said slowly, and Denny nodded, darting around and out of sight. Both of them had had the same thought – that it was those great thugs that had been dogging Denny for the last little while.

Soap began towards the door, thought about it, went back to the counter and grabbed out the butcher's knife, and returned to the previously planned route. He carefully unbolted the door, and it flung open suddenly.

* * *

The car sat at the side of the road, steaming pointlessly as the over-heated engine took in the cold air through a now folded front end. The three figures in the car were silent for some time, and this was because they were all semi-conscious.

Eventually, Bacon was the first to fully regain the use of his brain, and managed to open up his door and get around to the side.

There was a series of muttered curses as he tried to open up the driver's side door where Tom sat slumped over with his head on the wheel. Bacon gave the door handle a vicious pull, struggled with it for several more moments and then decisively put his foot up against the back door, took hold of the handle, and yanked it as hard as he could, the ruined steel giving way to the force of physics.

When the door came open, Tom's head slumped even further and the horn began to go off. That was when Ed began to stir.

"Goddamn his fat head," Bacon muttered under his breath. He wasn't one for panicky, sugary speeches. This was his form of worry. He peered into the car and, with some relief, found Ed staring back at him. "Alright, Ed?"

"Yeah, I'm alright. It was kind of a familiar experience anyways." Ed said, unbuckling his belt and opening his door. There was a kind of dry look on Bacon's face when the passenger door swung open with ease. "What?"

"Nothing, just help me get Tom out."

"Right." Ed nodded, and crossed around the car to help get the dead weight out of the driver's seat. It took some effort to move him out of the awkward positioning, but eventually they managed to get his seat belt undone.

When they sat Tom back away from the steering wheel, one of his eyes opened partially and fixed on Bacon – there was a nasty gash in his forehead, and his right eye was bruised badly, but otherwise he was basically unharmed.

"Fuck." Tom croaked. "Big, flying, fuck."

"Well said." Ed agreed, and leaned in to help Bacon remove an unresisting Tom from what was formerly a car. When they got him out, and turned him round, they found themselves being stared at by a family of tourists, one of which was holding a camera and giving them a sort of open-mouth smile that made all of them cringe. A little girl with pigtails stood and licked an ice cream cone while a small boy beside her busily picked his nose.

"The folks back home'll never believe this one!" the tourist said, and poised the camera for a picture. "Say cheese!"

There was a silence as Tom, Bacon, and Ed looked at one another, Tom held under the arms between the two of them. They all looked back at the tourist.

"Fuck off." They all said at once, and Ed gave the camera the finger as the flash went off.

"I told you these Brits were all nasty," A woman with a green knit hat said shrilly, trying to cover her children's ears as they, respectively, continued to eat ice cream, and pick their noses.

"Didn't I tell you that, Fred? That's why I said we should have gone to Canada!" The woman turned and pointed a badly French-manicured fingernail directly at Tom, whose eye was so swollen he could barely see her through it; "You have no compassion at all! You are sick human beings, absolutely disgusting! What do you have to say for yourselves?"

There was another lengthy silence as the three considered this speech with a mix of consideration as well as disbelief. Each of them had their own thoughts, but Bacon was the first to voice his.

"You are a hypocritical tit, your husband is a sadistic bastard, and your children are possessed. Have a fucking lovely day." Bacon said, and turned to Tom and Ed.

The tourist woman scoffed at this, grabbed her children's hands, and stormed off, her husband trailing reluctantly behind, camera still poised in case anything happened to move.

"We'll get him to Soap's kitchen." Ed said, "It's only half a block from here."

* * *

_Click, click, click, click._

Charlie Marker sat at the desk of his wood working room, his calloused hands threaded together on his desk as he watched the man on the opposite side. He was in his early thirties, his face was covered in piercings, his nails were painted black, and his head was shaved. He looked very shiny.

_Click, click, click._

He was rolling the barrel of a revolver around; each click was slow and deliberate. He had been doing it for a few minutes now, but Charlie was used to it – he'd worked with this guy before. He ran an acupuncture studio and tattoo parlor downtown, but when he wasn't doing that, he was up for hire as a professional interrogator, as it were.

_Click, click._

"Are you up to the job then, Pierce?" Charlie asked, sitting back in his chair. There was a rough carving of what looked like a sword fish standing upright on his desk – he picked it up and pulled a knife from his pocket, whittling the solid wood a bit more.

"Always up to a job," Pierce said, giving the barrel a final spin before putting the revolver away, though his twitchy hands itched to take it out of his pocket again. "It's what I do."

"Good then, the fellow you'll be dealing with is Travis Giantis. His friend owes me a good deal of money but isn't willing to give his location. He was part of a group,"

"The Brotherhood." Pierce said, opening a long, thin, black case that was set on his lap. "I know them."

"What do you mean you 'know them'? I'll make the assumption you're not a friend of theirs, at least." Charlie said, pausing the progression of the knife for a moment.

"I know them," Pierce repeated himself, looking up at Charlie, his multitude of piercings flashing in the yellow light of the room. "Meaning, I know them. Meaning I've met them, talked to them, and consequentially suffered a near fatal wounding from them."

A ghastly smile flitted across Pierce's thin, pale face. In the light, he looked like a skeleton with barely enough skin stretched over its skull.

"They don't like me too much, I daresay," he said, a glint in his eyes. "Ever since they saw me skin one of their friends alive – took the tattoo right off of that pretty neck of his and let him see it before he bled to death in front of them."

Charlie Marker had stopped again in the middle of carving; his moustache bristled.

"You know," Charlie said, "You really are a sick fuck."

* * *

Soap had kept a firm hold on the handle of the butcher's knife, and held it tensely in his hand, but when he saw who was on the other side, it was the last thing he had been expecting.

"What are you three doing back -" Soap began, but cut himself off and started again, "Tom, what the hell happened to your face?"

"You wouldn't believe it," Ed said, helping Tom into the kitchen towards a seat. "Tom was driving back here for his hat, and somehow a sewer cover got embedded right into the fucking engine."

"You don't say." Soap said, eyes on the counter as he crossed the room and grabbed a towel. He handed it to Tom, who pressed it to the still free-flowing gash on his head.

"What's that for?" Ed asked suddenly, looking at the knife that Soap was still holding.

"I'm a chef, Ed."

"Yes, but most chefs don't answer the door with butcher knives half up their shirt." Ed said, nodding to the knife. Soap let the knife drop down from his sleeve a bit. "And since when do you bolt the door?"

When Soap didn't answer, Ed let the subject drop. There was silence again as Tom held the cloth to his head, and sniffed slowly at the air.

"Jesus, you were right, those onions do smell like a sewer." He grumbled, raising his head a bit. Out of sight, Denny furrowed his brows, sniffed the sleeve of his jacket, and shrugged. After a moment, Tom stood up from his seat, staggered a moment, and then crossed over to the counter.

"Where are you going?" Bacon asked.

"To get my damn hat." He said, and looked at the counter top, "Where's it gone to? I know I put it here."

Denny pressed his back to the counter when Tom came closer; his eyes shifting around until he caught sight of an olive-coloured cap beside his foot. He swore under his breath.

"Maybe it's in the car." Ed suggested.

"It's not in the car. I wouldn't have cut through traffic and got myself a near concussion if my hat were in the car. I know I left it here." Tom said, leaning a bit over the counter – then his hat was suddenly flung into his face. Startled, Tom back-pedalled, tripped into Bacon and fell onto the ground.

"My God, you are spastic today." Bacon said, staring down at Tom.

"Fuck off, didn't you see that?" Tom pointed to the counter where his hat half-dangled on the edge. When all three of them shook their heads, Tom pointed more vigorously. "The goddamn counter threw my hat at me."

Ed and Bacon looked at the counter thoughtfully, and Soap looked at the ground.

"Just how hard did you hit your head?" Ed asked, going onto his haunches beside Tom.

"Fuck off," Tom repeated, still staring at the counter, "I'm serious – Soap, are you laughing?"

"No," Soap lied.

"First a sewer cover throws itself at me, and now my goddamn hat." Tom said as Bacon pulled him up onto his feet. The sound of barely muffled laughter came from behind the counter. "And now I'm hearing things."

"No, I heard that too." Bacon said, eyeing the counter too. He moved towards the counter, but stopped short when Soap appeared in front of him.

"Heard what?" Soap asked, crossing his arms and looking innocent. The discovery of Denny was slowly becoming inescapable, but that didn't mean that Soap wasn't going to at least try; he knew the sight of Denny would bring up some unwanted questions that he had insofar managed to avoid.

Bacon furrowed his brows at Soap.

"Are you hiding something?" Bacon asked. Soap shook his head. "Good, then you won't mind, if I step around you."

Bacon did so, but Soap was somehow there again. For a long moment, there was something like a face-off between the two men as they stared one another down, steady hazel against stubborn green. Neither of them noticed Ed walk past them, and around the counter.

"There's a dirty chap back here." Ed said plainly, jerking all of them out of their respective stupors.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Thanks for the review **Bkwyrm**, your review reminded me to update the story, I appreciate it, and would like to comment that I am glad I do not know any Permanent Twinkies. And thanks **Iniko**, you sexy beast, Hensley and Cleave will make another appearance eventually. Probably. 


	4. Hi ate us!

**Rated ARRR.**

* * *

****

The back room of Marker's Funerary was a wood-working room, where all of the products were made. Most days one would come in to find sawdust flying through the air, and see scraps of wood spread across the floor. None were being made today, and the dust had settled in piles on the ground. This was because Charlie Marker's focus was currently on the men in the room with him.

Travis Giantis sat firmly tied to a wooden chair, though his head was slumped over onto his chest. He was either asleep or unconscious – likely a bit of both. He'd taken a good beating, and lost quite a bit of blood up to this point.

Pierce Brown was an artist. He did tattoos, each of which had been amazing pieces of art work, but in the fact that this was his career, he couldn't be squeamish either.

That's why he was an acupuncturist too. He just liked needles, as was shown by the dozens of piercings adorning his relatively young face. He paced around Travis, little black case in his hand, sizing the man up as though he were a perspective meal. After a few moments of this, he kneeled beside Travis, and tilted his head up to look into a pair of glassy, half-open eyes.

Charlie Marker sat off to the side of the room in his blue apron, watching this display with interest, his wooden carving in one hand, a knife in the other. There was a whole lot of silence in the room, and as usual, Charlie was the one to break it.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"Inspecting." Pierce answered, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. He looked over at Charlie, and the man visibly jumped at the sight of Pierce in a half-lit room. "To discern how long I can keep him alive."

He looked back to Travis, and the man was showing signs of consciousness. He furrowed his brows at Pierce and seemed to be trying to focus his vision.

"Pierce?" Travis said quietly after some time, and the ghastly smile spread over Pierce's face again.

"And so recognition dawns," Pierce said, running his fingers along Travis' cheekbone, and letting them linger on the man's lips. Travis jerked his head back vehemently, and Piece stood again with a dangerous smile on his face, eyes still on the other man. "You haven't changed at all. So I wonder if it's the same for Dennis? Or dear, sweet Alex?"

Travis turned his head away from Pierce, his jaw firmly clenched.

"Have it your way," Pierce said softly, extracting dozens of long, thin, metal needles from his black carrying case. "I have time."

* * *

Denny stood up sheepishly from behind the counter, looking something like a dirty kid who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. There was another of those uncomfortable silences in the room as he shifted uncomfortably under their gazes.

All at once, three pairs of eyes turned to Soap.

"Who's this, then?" Bacon asked finally, gesturing to Denny.

"Old acquaintance." Soap said, taking a sudden interest in the far wall. He walked around them and carefully placed the knife he had been carrying back into the chopping block.

"So you were playing hide-and-go-seek then, were you?"

"Soap, what's going on?" Ed asked.

"But if it involves a porn king, don't tell us." Tom added.

Denny looked up from his feet, staring around at the four of them. He looked at Soap.

"Why are they calling you 'Soap'?"

"It's a nickname." Soap said quickly. He wanted out. Badly.

"On account of his lawful nature." Ed added, and Denny just nodded very slowly. "Just how old of an acquaintance is this fellow? You've had that nickname for some time, as I recall."

"Old, old acquaintance, alright? Ancient. Why does it matter?"

There was a moment of disbelief, and Bacon eyed Denny with suspicion.

"It matters because," Bacon said, taking a step forward, causing Denny to take two steps back, "You're one of our mates, Soap, and if this fellow here is what's been causing you to act so off lately –"

Soap pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Look," Soap said, "He hasn't done anything, alright? Just an old acquaintance, he showed up all of twenty minutes ago."

"Just an old acquaintance." Denny echoed, sounding a bit hurt. He looked down at his hands, and pulled at his nails a bit.

"See?" Soap nodded, ignoring the looks that were being pinned to him from all sides. "Right, then. Should call for a service to pick up your car."

Soap wandered off out of the room to the phone, his step quick. When he reached the other room, he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, wondering how he would get out of answering to this one.

Back in the kitchen, Denny continued to stare down at the floor, and all at once three stares turned to him.

"An old acquaintance, eh?" Ed asked after a moment. Denny nodded, but said nothing.

There was no doubt about it that Ed, Tom, and Bacon were all curious about Soap's past, as he'd been tight-lipped about every detail of it. They'd never pressed the issue, but it was slowly becoming inevitable.

"Got a name?" Ed asked.

"That depends," Denny grumbled, "On whether Alex wants me to."

"Old acquaintance indeed, even we don't ever call him Alex." Tom said, "That would be like calling Bacon by his first name."

There was a very long silence as all of the men considered this. Ed furrowed his brows, and Tom chewed thoughtfully on his nail. Tom turned to Bacon,

"Actually, what _is _your first name?"

"Don't push it." Bacon said flatly. "Look, we're not trying to look tough, but Soap's been a bit on edge lately and if you've any idea why –"

"I don't. This is the first time I've spoken to Soap in years." Denny said, and took a towel from off one of the racks. He dampened it on the tap, and put his face to it. It took several tries before he successfully peeled back all the layers of dirt. There was a Denny-shaped face imprint on the woven cotton cloth. Eventually he looked up at the three.

Silence rang out again, and as always, Tom was the first to comment.

"Fuck me; he looks like your double, Ed."

* * *

**Author's note:** Kind of went on a long, drawn-out, writer's-block-induced hiatus there. This is an incredibly short chapter, but I figured it would be best to put something out anyways. **Iniko**, lovin' you as always. **Colour of Love**, biting your nails is bad, it wears at the enamel of your teeth and nails and causes, like, fungus-y stuff. I'm getting the telepathy thing, though, but I think it became irrelevant since I got it after reading your review. Thanks for the psionic messages anyways, good to know you go the extra mile. **Ladybug11**, it's fortunate you're intrigued by my plot, because I am too, and that's not a good thing on my part, since a writer should know what they're doing. I decidedly do not. Hoorah. Bagel.


	5. Returning From the Filthy Depths

**Guess what? Rated R! Hah!**

****

* * *

"I'm not too sure he likes me." Pierce said vaguely as he arrived into Charlie Marker's carving room after what had no doubt been a long, painful session of 'turn-Travis-into-a-human-pincushion'. He stepped over to one of the heavy duty stainless steel sinks at the side of the room, washing blood from his hands.

Charlie looked up from his carving, which was happened to be turning into a handsome statute of a swordfish.

"I can't imagine why." Charlie said, and nicked away a little more of the carving. There was something about the way he handled the little carving knife that gave one the idea he could do more than make wooden fish with it.

"You should be careful with that carving. It's starting to look as though it could kill someone." Pierce commented, gesturing to the wooden fish his employer was holding. Charlie gave a sort of scoffing laugh, looking at the sharpened point.

"Only with your imagination, boy."

Pierce gave a ghastly grin. There were few people Pierce would smile at without killing afterwards, and Charlie was one of them – if only because he wasn't too certain he would win in a fight. Charlie was a legend in the underworld, and Pierce was a scrawny sadistic tattoo artist. The odds weren't really in his favour.

Charlie, however, put up with Pierce because he was useful. Sure, he was a bit creepy, and looked like a neo-Nazi with a piercing addiction, but he was the best at what he did. There weren't many skilled torturers – or Professional Inquisitors, as Charlie liked to call them - out there anymore, and just by looking at this guy's face it was obvious he knew what he was doing.

"Before you go back to having your fun," Charlie said as Pierce stepped carefully over a few piles of wood shavings, "I'll need you to scout a couple of locations. It turns out that a few of these brotherhood fellows didn't cover their trails as well as others – they may have taken in Dennis."

One of Charlie's gnarled, calloused hands held out a piece of paper with a list of names and addresses scrawled on it in red ink. Pierce looked it over, and then his eyes moved upwards, meeting with his employer's.

"And if they don't know where he is?" he asked quietly, like a child asking permission for something they're quite certain they won't get.

"Kill them, maim them, whatever. I want to get my point across that no one fucks with me. That safe had something too valuable to be left in the open for too long." Charlie growled, vehemently cutting off another square of wood. "If you find Dennis, you'll be sure to find the cash. There was three hundred thousand quid in there, and that will be your pay for this little adventure. The most important thing for you to get back - and this is _not_ optional Pierce - is a little blue envelope marked with the number '26'. Do not forget it. Kill Dennis once you've got the envelope, and _only_ once you've got the envelope."

* * *

"He doesn't look anything like me." Ed said skeptically.

Tom and Bacon both looked sideways at Denny, causing the shorter man to take a few steps back. He didn't like getting that sort of look - it usually led to Ideas. In Denny's experience, Ideas were a very bad thing.

"He does." Bacon said finally, "Just needs to be a bit taller."

"And girlier." Tom added loudly, and Ed punched him.

"I'm not jail bait, Tom." Ed said, waving his fist threateningly at his lanky friend.

"Look, you could cut glass with your cheekbones," Tom pointed out, still feeling spiteful for all of the jokes at his expense from earlier, "If you were arrested, some big tattooed chap named Bubba would claim you within the hour."

"You'd know." Bacon commented offhandedly, still staring down a suddenly apprehensive Denny.

"Did I miss the announcement that this was 'Beat On Tom Day'?"

"Yeah, didn't you see the pamphlets?" Ed asked, looking over at Tom, "Oh, right, you couldn't have – your stomach won't let you lean far enough to pick one up."

What happened next occurred far too fast to be explained by a bystander, so a play-by-play narration was suitable. Tom performed the equivalent of a rugby tackle on Ed at knee-height, but Ed moved aside in time for Bacon to be bowled over instead. Out of reaction, Bacon brought his knee up, landing it into Tom's ribcage. Tom fell back, landing into Ed as he attempted to break the two up, sending him onto the ground too, and as he fell, he reached out for the closest thing - which happened to be Denny - and yanked him along for the fall.

It was around this point that the back door opened and Soap walked in.

"I've called the towing company, they'll be here –"

He fell silent, staring at the tangle of limbs. It stared back.

"Jesus. Denny hasn't even known you three an hour and you're already trying to break him in."

* * *

Geoffrey Gotten ran a small, comfortable convenience store on one of the busier blocks in London. He was a man in his late thirties; he was happily married, and had two daughters, twelve and nine.

Geoffrey also had a tattoo. Normally this wouldn't matter, but in this case, it was all that mattered. His daughters didn't know about it, and his wife knew only out of necessity. The colourful image was on his back, just an inch below the spot where the neck curved into the shoulder – he'd rather forgotten about it after so many years, but every once in a while it came back to haunt him.

Tonight would be one of those nights.

The store was quiet, and his wife was at home for the day as the two sometimes alternated shifts. The door jingled as a customer entered the store – he was well dressed in an ankle-length black jacket, but there was something strange about how low over his forehead he had pulled his black knit cap.

"Geoff Gotten?" The customer asked, looking down at a sheet of paper in his hands. Geoff gave a sort of vague smile and nodded.

"That's me, mate. How can I help ye?"

With lightning quick speed, one of the customer's hands shot out, grasping his throat and slamming the clerk's head down against the counter hard enough to crack the sheet of plastic over the lottery tickets.

"I think so." Pierce said, tilting his head so the light hit his features. Geoff looked up at his attacker out of the corner of his eye and gave a low groan.

"Pierce." Geoff croaked. "Jesus. You're supposed t'be dead."

"Supposed to be." Pierce agreed, and moved aside part of his shirt over his chest. A long, white scar was over his heart. "Alex's blade didn't go deep enough, it turns out."

"The fuck d'ye want?" Geoff asked, muffled by the sheet of plastic. Pierce responded by grabbing Geoff's hair, yanking him up, and slamming him back down onto the counter. This time blood spattered onto the plastic as Geoff's nose broke.

"I was hired to question you." Pierce said, running his fingers idly through Geoff's hair, "But I don't expect you'd know the location of your former comrade-in-arms, Dennis Farthing, would you?"

The Blade member responded by coughing, so Pierce lifted him up to look at him.

"You know, you were never exactly a homely man, Geoffrey." Pierce said thoughtfully. He grasped Geoff's chin, pulling the man up so he could look at him – there was blood running down his lips. "Yes, very nice."

"And married." Geoff added hastily. "And me wife won't be none too happy 'bout this mess."

The former Blade member swung one fist around and landed a right hook into Pierce's rib cage, and when he stumbled back, aimed a left at his jaw. Both of the hits struck solidly and gave Geoff enough time to reach under the counter for what appeared to be a fire axe.

"Now, I know this axe looks bulky," Geoff said matter-of-factly, hefting it up. It did look bulky. It also looked very sharp. "And it might nae be my original one, but I imagine that one strike on your neck will put even you down for the count. So I suggest ye get your scrawny ass out o' here or I'll be makin' ye."

Pierce, who had managed to collect himself from the thrown punches, looked at Geoff with a raised eyebrow. Well, a raised brow, anyways, on account of the fact his eyebrows appeared to have been shaved off and replaced with metal studs. Instead of running, like any sane man would do, Pierce took a step towards the man.

"I didnae see what ye did to Wesley, but I saw what it did t'Alex." Geoff continued, and there was a sort of darkness in his voice that suggested he had no intentions of backing down either.

"Yes? Well, you should see what I've done to Travis over the last few hours." Pierce said nastily. There was a horrible grin on his face.

Geoff's otherwise good-natured eyes narrowed and the axe blade shone under the florescent lights.

"Why?" Geoff asked. "Ye self-employed? Lookin' t'go out fer revenge on the people who defended themselves 'gainst ye? Tarantino style?"

"I was employed. You see, Dennis has gotten himself into a spot of trouble with a man known as 'The Coffin', I'm sure you've heard of him?" Pierce said sweetly, watching gleefully as Geoff's entire expression dropped to one of utter shock. "Yes. Can't seem to find the little bugger now."

"So ye are usin' us as connections to him? Ye know we'd never give him to ye."

"Oh, I know." Pierce agreed, "But I'm certainly not opposed to the chance of getting to see all of you again. Tarantino style, as you put it."

There was a flash of movement, and a body hit the ground.

* * *

For the second time that day, a hand emerged from the manhole. It was different this time, though, in the fact that it appeared to be holding a large handgun. The next driver who was unfortunate enough to be rolling over the open sewer received a gunshot to their front right wheel. The car swerved a little as the flat tire rolled pointlessly beneath it, wobbled around the street, and came to a sudden stop on the back end of Tom's unfortunate station wagon.

The remaining traffic came to a stand still as people gawped at the sight of the two crushed cars, though no one made a move to get out and help – they just stared.

Hensley and Cleave emerged from the sewers and into the light of day; both of them were covered in dirt and various other unmentionables, and were somewhat worse for the wear. Both of them squinted into the daylight, and made half attempts at cleaning off their sunglasses in order to maintain just a little pride. With as much confidence as they could muster after emerging from the sewage system, the two walked across the street just barely avoiding getting run over by a horse and buggy.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Once again I appear to have taken a rather lengthy amount of time to produce a single, short chapter. I've been a bit busy as of late, but shall try to get my chapters out a little sooner, since it looks like this may end up being a fairly long fanfiction. **Iniko**, yes, Pierce is probably the most sadistic character I've ever made, he disturbs even me. **Banshee**, thanks for the compliments and for spurring me into action. **Sweet A.K **and **Junkie**, thanks for the comments. 


	6. Old Friends

**AR-DEE-AR-AR!**

* * *

Ed had been standing outside of Soap's kitchen around the same time that Hensley and Cleave had finally struggled out of their entrapment. He'd been sent to watch for the tow truck to come pick up Tom's car, and had nearly been hit by a swerving car with a blown tire. Thankfully, the back of Tom's car prevented Ed from becoming an insignificant, colourful smear on the sidewalk. He had, instead, been hit by a dirt puddle that the swerving car had kicked up, so his crisp camelhair coat was suddenly not so crisp, and his foul mood had just gotten fouler.

Smoke began to pour from the newest car in what was slowly becoming a pile up, and Ed managed to collect enough of what remained of his wits and approached the car to check on the driver.

"You alright, mate?" Ed asked, though he knew it was a pretty stupid question. The driver looked up, and Ed was startled to find himself staring into a pair of large brown eyes.

Had this been a movie, or the works of a romantic with a penchant for cliché love-at-first-sight, boy helps girl stories, this would have been the point where the two locked eyes for a long time, and both would have been lost for words and unable to possibly speak.

Because this wasn't written by a romantic, but rather by a twisted weirdo, this was the response:

"Fucking peachy." She said, and wiped blood off of her lip. Ed looked awkward for a moment, and then fell over.

There was a good reason for this, and it was because Cleave had just hit him over the head with the blunt of his gun. The woman in the car stared at the two agents as they picked up Ed's unconscious form and walked away with him; Hensley backtracked, and then said to the woman:

"You saw nothing."

And then he followed after his partner again. They tried for a long time to hail a taxi, but for some reason no one would stop for two men in ominous suits holding up an unconscious man, so they took a ride on the horse and buggy.

The woman shrugged, and then got out of her car to assess the damage. Ironically, exactly three minutes and forty-eight seconds later, a tow truck arrived and took her car away to be serviced.

* * *

"So what do you do for a living, Denny?" Bacon asked.

"I plead the fifth." Denny replied promptly, and Soap put away the large meat cleaver he'd been slowly extracting.

"Ah." Tom said, "Well if it makes you feel any better, Bacon sells stolen goods on the street and I sell them in the back of my convenience store. You wouldn't happen to be interested in rifles, would you?"

"Shut up, Tom." Bacon and Soap said at the same time.

"This isn't the sort of information you should just give to people, Tom," Soap said.

"Just trying to make him feel welcome," Tom shrugged, "Besides, what could he do that's so bad anyways, he is a friend of yours Soap, and we're all aware of your obsession with rules. As long as he's not a cop."

"Or a lawyer," Bacon added.

"Or a lawyer." Tom continued casually, "Then what's the problem with a question or two?"

Tom gave Soap an infuriatingly good-natured little smile, knowing he had trumped the Chef this time around.

"So what do you do, Denny?" Tom asked again, when he was satisfied that he had corked Soap's protests for now.

"Well, I –" Denny began, but was cut off by a knock at the door.

"Must be Ed, I'll get it," Soap said, and hurriedly went to the front.

He opened the door and got the briefest glimpse of the woman on the other side before he was grabbed by the collar and yanked down into a tongue-entwining kiss. Soap flailed a little, and the other three looked on with raised eyebrows; when the woman let him go, Soap leaned up against the nearest wall.

"Hullo Osprey." Soap said.

"Hullo Alex," she replied. "Hullo Dennis you _fuck_wad."

All but Soap and Dennis looked taken aback by this. The woman named Osprey was only a little over five feet tall with a sweet, heart shaped face and obvious Asian backgrounds. In her suede and faux-fur lined coat, pink knit cap, and with her large brown eyes, she looked like a sweet little thing. Bacon and Tom's similar expectations of a kind woman had been dropkicked, so a little shock was warranted.

"Oz." Denny replied simply.

"Alex, the parking here absolutely sucks," Osprey went on, pulling off her gloves, "I wound up parking in the back of another car."

"Another car." Tom repeated dully.

"Some old junked up station wagon," Osprey said airily, "But the towing company came."

Tom twitched.

"Where the hell is Ed, then?" Bacon asked.

"He's not a tall, thin chap with curly hair, is he?" Osprey asked.

"Yes."

"Camelhair coat, nice cheekbones, dim expression?"

"That would be him, yes."

"Some gorilla knocked him out and took him for a date on a carriage. Apparently he's Faye Wray's replacement." She said, and then turned to Soap, "Alex, are you just going to lean against the wall all day or do I get my welcome grope?"

There was a very long awkward silence after this, and Osprey marched over to Soap, grabbed his hand and pressed it to her behind. She pursed her lips at him when he did nothing.

"Your grip is gone Alex! What's the matter with you? I want my bloody grope, it's been four and a half goddamn years, and I expect at least a halfway decent bottom grope!"

"If you don't mind my asking, who the hell is she and what the hell is she doing?" Tom said from his place seated on the floor.

There was more silence still, and Osprey looked from Soap, to Tom, to Soap's hand, to Soap again. He remained silent, and his mouth was pulled into a thin line that made him look ill.

"I'm an old friend of his," Osprey said, and it sounded more like question directed at Soap. When he said nothing still, she added, "From the glory days."

"'Glory days'?" Bacon repeated.

"Alex, what is wrong with you?" Osprey asked.

By this point Soap was covering his face with one of his hands, slowly shaking his head. His shoulders were rounded in what could only ever be considered as the stance of one who has been defeated after a long and brutal battle of strength, will, and determination. Unfortunately the little bastard called Fate had won out and brought it all crashing back.

"It was all going well." Soap said mournfully, "There were a few bumps, but it was all going well."

"What is he on about?" Osprey asked, and everyone but Denny shrugged.

"It couldn't last. I knew it couldn't, it was too much to ask." Soap went on. He looked up at everyone, and the deep shadows beneath his eyes showed clearly.

"Dear God, you really have changed." Osprey said quietly. "I didn't want to believe it when I'd heard it, but you have. I should have come sooner."

"Why did you come at all?" Soap asked.

Osprey looked briefly taken aback by the question, but got over it quickly,

"Geoff was attacked last night." Osprey said, and Soap stared at her.

"Who's Geoff?" Tom asked weakly, barely keeping tabs on what was happening anymore.

"Shut the hell up Tom. Attacked by who?"

"Someone working for Charlie the Coffin. I learned about the situation from Geoff, and since he's still alive and coherent, he must have put up one hell of a fight," Osprey said, "Alex, it was Pierce."

"Who's Pierce?" Tom asked, but quickly shut up when he saw the look on Soap's face. He sank into his seat a bit, and Bacon gave Tom a brief pat on the shoulder.

"Pierce is dead." Soap said plainly.

"Apparently not."

"No, he _is _dead. He's dead." Soap repeated, "Dead."

"He's alive and kicking hard," Osprey went on urgently, "And he's trying to kick his way through the entire list of the Brotherhood. We're all on a hit list, Alex."

"He's dead!" Soap said loudly, quite suddenly jerking away from the wall, "I watched him die, goddammit!"

"No, Alex, we're going to die if you don't get it together. He's still alive, and he's still a murderous sadistic bastard."

"This is all my fault!" Denny wailed.

"Yes it is you fuckwit, but that's not the point right now," Osprey shot back, then rounded on Soap again. "He will buzz saw every one of us Alex, we're re-grouping."

"Dead." Soap said stubbornly. Osprey grabbed his collar and shook him roughly.

"We need our leader back!"

"He's dead too."

"Goddammit Alexander – " she began, and her sweet heart-shaped face was turning pink with rage. She cut herself off, however, when Soap slid down the wall and sat quietly on the floor.

The silence that followed was so thick that it nearly asphyxiated them all right then and there. Tom hiccupped.

"Alex," Osprey said, regaining her calm at the sight of Soap looking so forlorn. "What happened to Wesley –"

"Don't say it." Soap said.

"It wasn't your fault." She finished. "You did all you could to save him."

"Stop."

"And what you saw –"

"Please."

"I know you don't want to go back. But we need you Alex. Pierce will never give up now that he knows where we are. You know he won't; he'll stalk us, he'll kill –"

"I can't."

"You're the best there is."

"Then we're all dead." Soap said plainly.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Please don't kill me. **TeenagedBanshee**, the cliffhanger thing should stop one day, but that will probably be the last chapter, if I ever get to it. **Junkie**, if you like angst, then these next few chapters will probably be your favourites. **Thalionia**, you smell. 


	7. Mistaken Identity

**No Warning For You!**

* * *

Charlie the Coffin watched Travis from his spot behind his desk. The man was young, there was no doubt about that; he was anywhere from his late twenties to early thirties, from what he could see. He was tottering forwards in his seat, and it was obvious the only thing keeping him there anymore were the ropes around his shoulders and wrists. 

Charlie stood from his seat and walked over to Travis' prone form.

"Boy, look up," Charlie said, nudging Travis' foot a bit. It took several tries, but eventually Travis complied, looking at the mob boss through hazy eyes. "Why are you doing this?"

Travis said nothing, but continued to stare at Charlie with what could only ever be considered as a blank look.

"If you tell me where Farthing is, this can end." Charlie continued, and took Travis' silence as a cue to go on. "I've got other things to do, I'm sure you do too, and Pierce could go on all day, the sick fuck. I'd rather not have to watch anymore of this. So, if you want to get out of here before he gets back, I suggest you start talking. Quick."

Silence still.

"Why are you defending him? He's abandoned you." Charlie went on, trying to be reasonable.

Travis forced his eyes up to meet Charlie's again, and he gave a slow grin. Blood ran out of his mouth and down his chin, and he said something very peculiar.

"Mack shall ride again!"

And then he passed out.

Charlie stared at the limp body for a long moment, then said to the silence,

"Fucking delusional retard."

And then he sat back down at his desk and continued to carve.

* * *

The sound echoed through the kitchen, a clap that rang again and again in everyone's ears as Osprey stood with a raised, open palm, and Soap sat staring blankly at a wall he was sure he hadn't been looking at moments ago. A red hand print began to slowly develop on the pale flesh of the chef's cheek, and it was all everyone could do not to wince – no one said anything, and this just made it worse. For once Soap wished Tom would make some stupid comment, shove his foot in his mouth, be an asshole and say something incredibly off topic – but he didn't. 

"Are you going to listen now, or do I have to bitch slap you again, Alex?" Osprey said matter-of-factly. "You know I don't slap, I punch, but I make an exception to bitch slap when someone is being a bi-"

And suddenly Osprey was on the ground as Soap swept a leg out and knocked her off her feet. She began to prop herself up on her elbows, but found she was unable to go any further as Soap was suddenly on her, pinning her where she lay.

"Four years, Osprey," Soap said between grit teeth, grey eyes flashing at her. "Four years I've been trying to get a new life, trying to forget what's happened, trying to keep the rest of my goddamn fucking _sanity_. You think this is easy, Sh-"

"Don't you dare say my name –" Osprey began.

"You think this is easy, Shelley? Do you?" Soap barreled on, hands firm on her shoulders. His eye twitched. "I'm expected to get over this, get over being a fucking neurotic, nervous, obsessive-compulsive with one swift smack and then strap on my knives and get to work? It doesn't go like that. I'm not a machine, and neither are you, so stop fucking pretending. You don't like this any more than I do!"

Beneath Soap's hands, Osprey's tensed muscles slowly relaxed and she sank back against the floor a little, watching him watching her. His breath began to even out now, and silence took hold again; the two merely watched one another, unable to go on.

"You're sure it was a brown station wagon you hit?" Tom asked.

"Shut up Tom!" Everyone said.

* * *

Jerry hated hospitals. She'd always had hated them, but she had come that day to see an old friend – admittedly it had been a brief visit, but Geoff had understood her hurry and hadn't commented when she couldn't look at the needle being put into his IV. That had always been the great thing about Geoff Gotten – he knew when to be tactful; he was a good guy, and he sure as hell hadn't deserved what happened to him that night. 

She knew that company was welcomed from Geoff; even during every day life he hadn't been bothered by visits from old friends, so long as his children didn't hear about his exploits as a younger man. But especially right then and there, Jerry knew Geoff had welcomed her - even as Mrs Gotten watched with suspicion when she gave him a hug and a stuffed bear. The bear had been for Geoff's sense of humour; Jerry didn't do the flower thing. She only wanted flowers if they were on her grave - she'd already picked out the colour, too.

As she ground out her cigarette beneath a black stiletto, she mulled over what Geoff had told her. The shiny little freak was still alive after taking a knife to the chest; but then, Jerry supposed it only further proved the point she had tried to make since she'd first met him – he was heartless.

Sighing, she tugged her jacket closer to herself and began towards her car, trying not to think too hard about it. The Brotherhood would be rising again, and this time around she wouldn't be there to go to war with them.

Yes, the flowers would be purple, she was sure of it.

* * *

There was darkness. 

Complete darkness.

Shit.

For a long moment, Ed thought he'd gone blind, and then he realized some utter tit had shoved a bag on his head. He had been about to take it off, but found it difficult since his hands were secured behind his back – bastards.

Shifting in the cold metal seat he'd been placed in, Ed came to the conclusion that if he twisted his hands a little like this, and managed to reach a sharp object, that he was probably still screwed. He didn't know how to fight.

He paused in his movements for a moment when he heard the sound of a door opening. There were footsteps near him and the sound of a click over head – the bag was removed from Ed, and blinding light suddenly filled his vision, causing him to squint until his eyes became used to the sudden change.

The first thing he saw was two men watching him patiently, both with sunglasses and dark suits.

"Hello Mister Farthing."

* * *

Reeeeeally short chapter. Really. Seriously. Short. Holy crap. 

**Iniko**, you still teh sexxorz (Is that how it's spelled? Sexx0rz? Z3xx0rz? Bah). **TeenagedBanshee**, I totally understand the busy schedule thing, thanks for taking the time, it's appreciated. **Junkie**, I know my updating is infrequent, many apologies; knew you'd enjoy the angsty-ness. **M. Mehiel**, thanks for reviewing, I'm glad my efforts to mirror Ritchie's vision is paying off at least a little, it can be kind of difficult. **Rose Atlee**, thanks for your enthusiasm.

And to all my readers, thank you for reading and reviewing, you have no idea how much it means to me. If you're reading, please give a review once in a while so I know you're out there, it lets me know I should keep doing the story, that I'm not performing to an empty auditorium. Happy holidays everyone, hope it's a good one, and a happy new year if I don't get another chapter up before then.


	8. Deliberation and Another Comeback

**Rated M for Mat-hoor.**

* * *

"Hello Mister Farthing." Hensley said, smiling a smile that just fell short of reaching his eyes. There was a pregnant pause, and Ed just gave them a funny look.

"Surprised we found you?" Cleave asked, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

"I'm sorry, it may just be the concussion," Ed said politely, "But who the fuck are you and where the fucking hell am I?"

"You should watch your mouth, Mister Farthing, you're not in a position to be asking questions."

"I'm not Mister Farthing." Ed said flatly.

"Right." Hensley said, "I forgot you don't appreciate formalities, _Denny_."

"No, I'm not Denny either," Ed said, and realized that, considering the circumstances, it kind of made sense now why Denny had been hiding. He was in trouble. A lot of trouble, apparently.

"Okay," Hensley said, all too friendly. He pulled up a chair, spinning it around, whacking Cleave in the shin, and sitting down so that he was facing Ed now, "then who are you today?"

"The same person I am every day."

"Whose that? Mother Theresa?"

"Was that supposed to sound even the least bit threatening?" Ed asked, raising his eyebrows, "Honestly, 'Mother Theresa' has to be the worst response you could come up with, under the circumstances."

"He's right, you know." Cleave said, rubbing at his shin.

"Shut it, Cleave." Hensley snarled, waving a hand at his partner.

"Why? Not like you're making progress." Ed said, and Hensley frowned deeply.

"Mister Farthing, you're already in deep enough."

"I am _not_ Mister Farthing, you tit!"

* * *

It was a face off, the dead silence as the reunited friends stared at one another, and Soap's expression was more serious than any of them had ever seen it – or at least, more so than Bacon and Tom had ever seen.

"God, I love it when you take command." Osprey said, eventually breaking the silence. Soap sighed, and released his hold on her, getting to his feet.

"Glad to see your sense of self is still intact." Soap said, and offered out a hand to her.

"My horniness, you mean." Osprey corrected him, taking the hand and pulling herself up.

"Something like that."

For some time after that, no one spoke again, and they all just stood in that ever-stretching silence, all of them stuck in their own thoughts, perhaps one of them wondering about his station wagon but not daring to say anything, lest he be told to shut it for the fiftieth time that day.

"So what the fuck are we standing about for?" Bacon said, giving that sneer he was so good at when he was royally pissed off. "Ed's been kidnapped, and one of your other mates are being tortured."

"A plan would be a good course of action." Denny admitted.

"Right. A plan." Soap agreed, pulling himself together.

In unison, all of them looked at Tom, who, in turn, looked up, looked around at them all, looked sheepish, and finally managed to look pissed off because he didn't know why he was being stared at.

"What?" he said.

* * *

**Author's Note:** You probably all want to kill me right about now. I'm afraid Life has swept me up lately and hasn't let me down for a breather – believe me, I thought about the story, but never got to it. Well, now I did, anyways.

**Rose Atlee**, er, I'm afraid I didn't get this chapter up as soon as you'd hoped. **Banshee**, happy very late birthday. **MciroChips**, you made a good guess to think that's who they were based off of. Good on yer. **Roaddog**, thanks for continuously checking back. If you guys ever want to send me feedback, I can be found at


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